Xiaomi is a company we here at Pocketnow, admittedly, have very little experience with. But last year, when Hugo Barra, former spokesperson and VP for Android product management, announced he was leaving Google to help Xiaomi expand internationally, the popular Chinese manufacturer was suddenly on our radar.

Since then, Xiaomi may not have been hard developing tons of new handsets like many other companies, but has instead been taking its business across borders. As such, we felt it was a great time to see how the company and its products compete with those we’re more familiar with.

It’s an entry-level smartphone sold at entry-level prices. Its insides are closely related to many other budget phones currently on the market – 1GB RAM, Snapdragon 400, 8GB storage, etc. So how does it stack up? We haven’t given it the full review treatment, but we did take a weekend to get familiar with the phone. Watch our Redmi 1S impressions video below, and take to the comments to tell us what you think about the phone!

Thanks to Clifton Thomas for the loaner device that made this coverage possible!